XXIV
She retreated, as he advanced, within the deeper obscurity of an opened door but he had seen, in the shimmering, elusive light, her features, gathered the unmistakable, intangible impression of her person.
“It’s me, Gordon Makimmon,” he said. He paused by the step, on which he laid the trout, shining with sudden, liquid gleams of silver in the moonlight.
“Oh!” she exclaimed in a low voice; “oh!” She moved forward, materializing, out of the dark, into a figure of white youth. Her face was pale, there were white ruffles on her neck, on her arms, her skirt clung simply, whitely, about her knees and ankles.
“I stopped to see Sim,” he explained further, “and took you for Mrs. Caley. I reckoned I’d bring them some trout: I didn’t know your father was here.”
“Won’t you sit down. Mrs. Caley is sick, and Sim’s on the mountain with the cattle. Father isn’t here.”
He mounted to the portico, mentally formulating a way of speedy escape; he thought, everywhere he turned Lettice Hollidew stood with her tiresome smile. “I come out here every summer,” she volunteered, sinking upon a step, “and spend two weeks. I was born here you see, and,” she added in a stiller voice, “my mother died here. Father Merlier calls it my yearly retreat.”
“I’d be pleased if you’d take the fish,” he remarked; “I guess I’d better be moving—I’ve got to see the priest.”
“Why, you haven’t stopped a minute,” she protested, “not long enough to smoke one of your little cigarettes. Visitors are too scarce here to let them go off like that.”
At the implied suggestion he half-mechanically rolled a cigarette. The chair he found was comfortable; he was very weary. He sat smoking and indifferently studying Lettice Hollidew. She was, to-night, prettier than he had remembered her. She was telling him, in a voice that rippled cool and low like the stream, of Mrs. Caley’s indisposition. Her face, now turned toward the fields, was dipped in the dreaming radiance; now it was blurred, vaguely appealing, disturbing. Her soft youth was creamy, distilling an essence, a fragrance, like a flower; it was one with the immaculate flood of light bathing the world in virginal beauty.